Voyager 2 recovers from fault
The 42-year-old spacecraft is showing its age
Elderly planetary probe Voyager 2 has recovered from a glitch that prevented it from calling home after a scheduled manoeuvre on 25 January 2020.
The error arose when Voyager 2 was ordered to perform a routine 360˚ rotation to recalibrate its magnetic field instrument. When the flight team didn’t hear back from Voyager on schedule, they realised they had inadvertently left the spacecraft running two power intensive systems at the same time.
Both Voyagers use nuclear powered generators which are slowly degrading, their available power generation dwindling by four watts every year.
The extra load on the system caused the
spacecraft to overdraw its power supply, meaning it couldn’t operate its communications correctly.
Thankfully, both spacecraft have
mechanisms to remedy such errors and Voyager 2 turned off instruments until it had enough power to call home.
www.nasa.gov